Hero's Journey

Chapter 9

Delia awakens coughing and then she's throwing up buckets of water, her hair falls in her face, clinging to her cheeks much like her clothes do to her soaked skin.

After awhile of sputtering she looks up. Day breaks through the darkness of night in one epic clashing battle. The aftermath being the sun's shooting tendrils causing the morning sky to explode in pinks and blues. Some of these tendrils light her up, warming her clammy skin.

Delia pushes her knotty hair back, eyes searching wildly for something familiar.
Nothing is.

She sits at the rocky bank of a stream, stones cutting into her tender skin. Delia rubs the silt from her eyes. This can't be.

Memories flood into her, filling up all the empty places like brandy would a mug.

Delia lets out a small sound of horror before bending over to vomit water again.

Once done she wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. It is a miracle she survived. The stream took her last night and gave her back to land far away from camp.

This is not the work of a mere stream. Delia realizes with a start. This is a river, the river Ta'ce. The stream I thought I saw at camp earlier must of been the beginnings of the river.

Now looking at the sparkling teal water Delia knows that she is correct, this is the river Ta'ce. Dread fills her stomach.

The river Ta'ce runs swift and smooth for all she knows she could be miles away from camp. Worst still she has not a clue to which bank of the Ta'ce she's on. She can be on a totally different side of the river in Lithko or she can be still on the side in Pikk.

Delia shoves away the questions and "what ifs" and instead gets to her feet. Her legs wobble unsteadily beneath her and she nearly collapses. The writer takes a couple tentative steps forward but instantly falls to her knees the stones cutting into her palms and knees, causing blood to trickle from them.

"Sticks and stones." She curses beneath her breath, wincing at the sharp sting of the wounds.

"Are you okay?"

Delia turns, fists raised in defense, eyes staring at the boy in front of her. A boy that looks familiar....

"Kipdale?" She asks, lowering her hands.

The boy looks different, perhaps taller without such a severe hungry look in his eyes. No, it is still there, just more subdued.

The boy nods.

"How did you find me?"

"I-I've been following you and that man for awhile. I was sleeping in a tree when the flood came. I heard your screams and followed you down the river. W-when I fished you out I thought you were dead."

Delia sighs in relief. "Thank you for your help Kipdale, you saved me once again. I am truly in your debt. But I must ask one more favor."

Kipdale nods his assent.

"Do you know how to get back to camp? If we find it I'll force Kagon to allow you to travel with us."

The boy ghosts a smile. "S-sure." However, the smile quickly disappears. "But I don't remember where it was."

"Then we can look for it together."

It surprises Delia that this boy, not too much younger than her acts so similar to a shy child. He must of gone through a lot in order to act this way. She thinks.

"Okay." He murmurs.

"Do you at least know the direction you came from?"

Kipdale seems to ponder this. "I-I think it was this way." He points to the right.

"Then that is the way we will go."

At that Delia stands, ignoring the soreness in her limbs and the blood trickling from her wounds like a river in its own right.

She limps forward and the two begin their walk back to camp not noticing the men in the trees or the sound of bows being drawn.

〰〰〰

"Delia! Delia!" Kagon yells, his loud voice booms through the forest, frightening the birds and other animals so all is quiet except for his repetitive shouts for his scribe.

Before he can shout her name again Kagon suddenly hears a light whinnying as he takes in a breath of air. He wanders toward the sound, thinking maybe he'll find Deliea there. Instead he finds something entirely different. Hidden beneath mounds of foliage under an overhang of rock lay Delia's horse. Kagon's own horse lays dead yards away with a large tree on its dead body. Kagon wrinkles his nose in disgust at not only the putrid smell but of the flies as they make a feast of the cadaver's flesh.

Both equestrian creatures must of been able to break the branches that their ropes were tied to when they sensed the storm coming. Only Delia's horse was able to survive the storm and find the makeshift shelter.

Kagon grabs the horse's reigns and helps pull the horse from the overhang, brushing the branches and leaves from its brown back, uncovering a saddlebag that is still strapped to the horse's side.

Curiously the hero opens the sack to find only one lone item in the sack. An item he recognizes as Delia's beloved notebook,
it is one of the only things that was not destroyed by the flood.

The writer probably forgot it in the bag last night while unpacking the other things attached to the saddle. It was a careless mistake that saved both her journal and the notes she had in it of their adventures so far.

Kagon grins. When he finds her she'll be happy that her notebook was not lost.
But, exactly when will he find her?

Kagon shakes his head. It is of no matter, he will find her even if all he comes up with is her bloated corpse. She deserves to be found after being lost for all those years with her dreadful father.

The father that he let live because of Delia. Kagon's been in many a battle, he did not need to enter another one, especially one that is not his. The fight against Davel and Lis is all Delia's. If she wishes to ever return to it she can because he is waiting for her. It was one of the last things Davel told him before he left.

"I wish to kill you and I know that you can kill me right now. I don't understand why you don't but just know that if I ever see Delia again, and I'm sure the Fates will have out paths cross, that my daughter will either become my prisoner or she will have to run me through."

Kagon remembers smiling at the foolish old man and saying, "She has already had the feather light touches of freedom in her time with me. If she sees you again I am sure that the blade you speak of will be through your chest in an instant."

But if she is dead that day will never happen, if she is dead she won't ever truly and fully get to know freedom and become its friend.
Kagon doubts the Fates will allow something as anticlimactic as that to happen. They love a good story. A story that Delia will tell through her writing, one that will be in every bookstore and in the great library of Lithko.

Speaking of which what is in that journal she always carries with her?

Kagon looks down at the journal with newfound interest but then decides against it.

Books are vapid wastes of time anyways. I have better things to do.

He tucks the notebook back into the saddlebag and mounts Delia's horse.

"Ya!"

At that he rides off yelling the writer's name throughout the dark, thick forest.